


constellations

by windsilk



Category: Naruto
Genre: F/M, Post-Chapter 699 (Naruto), Pre-Chapter 700 (Naruto), Slow Burn, Wanderer!verse, sasuke and sakura are On The Road but jack kerouac isn't involved at all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-26
Updated: 2018-08-26
Packaged: 2019-07-02 16:27:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 14,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15800289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/windsilk/pseuds/windsilk
Summary: Formerly known as wanderer!verse."I'm in love with a man who thinks he needs to search the world for his heart when it's already inside of him."Maybe one day I'll fly next to you. --Sasuke/Sakura.





	1. flock of birds

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a long time ago, and I still love it very much. I hope if you're reading it for the first time you like it too. 
> 
> also, if you're needing a playlist to keep you company in this story, in your life: https://8tracks.com/windsilk/constellations

He dresses like he’s about to pack up and leave any moment. His clothes are made for travel, his home is spartan, and sometimes the way he looks at the gates is the way that she wishes he would look at her. 

The years have taken and taken from him, and all that he’s been left with is the faint smell of smoke and the propensity to spiral to the sky, float away. 

It is something she cannot deny any longer: he does not belong here.

Things were good for them, in spite of it all. They were finally all back together, and the word family had never meant so much to her. Time had given her a dream that she’d thought impossible for so long. 

It is some kind of bliss. 

They train in the summery afternoons, lay in the long grass and watch the clouds and birds pass by as the days grow longer, and see stars at the bottoms of fizzy bottles by night. 

He looks at her in wonderment. He looks at her, and she feels like this was where they’re meant to be. 

But even though he smirks at Naruto’s antics and rolls his eyes at Kakashi’s excuses and mountains of paperwork, even though he holds her hand in the moments when the air is quiet and sun glows golden, she knows. 

It is only a matter of time. It is only a matter of time until he leaves. 

And she does not know if she will stop him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written to "o" by coldplay


	2. switzerland

(07:18:32:54:05)

He feels like fog settled over a field in the early light of the day. Heavy and light, opaque and transparent. 

She could stay here, curled up in quilts and pressed into his side, for years. The breeze is chilly, but his hand against her spine is warm, and his breath is steady, steady. 

He is safe. He is a harbor; he is home. 

She wakes to gray light and his lips pressed against her still damp hair. There is a vague cooing of a mourning dove wafting around the slope of her shoulders and into the hollows of their ears, but all she hears is his heartbeat. 

All she hears is the crooning of a second chance. 

Another day he stayed, another day in her grasp. Another day to make it count.

Their legs are woven together, and when she blinks blearily, he is watching her carefully with a look so soft that it feels like the faint edges of a dream sewn by wind, by silk. 

She cranes her neck to press her lips to his in greeting, and when he says good morning, she can’t help but agree. 

Another twenty-four hours in her grasp. 

–

(05:20:04:36:49)

Restlessness comes easier to her ever night that he stays. She wakes at his every movement, eyes cracking open to reaffirm that he’s still there, that he’s still with her, before settling back down. 

He gives no indication that he knows of her worries, and she does not tell him of her suspicion. She does not tell him of the lurking feeling that has settled in her legs and weighs her down every time she walks toward him. 

It is the unspoken truth that she is sure they both know, and when they make love, it is in the space between their breaths. 

He doesn’t meet her eyes as much as he used to, she thinks. 

But she’s lost the courage to speak up. Saying it out loud, finding the voice to face her fears, feels like making it real. 

In the middle of the night, at least, she can pretend it’s an elusive nightmare. She can pretend that his slow withdrawal from her is just her imagination. 

–

(03:22:30:17:58)

His touch is a slow burn. His skin is smooth, his angles sharp. Her thighs, muscled after years of endurance, are gentle, pliable just for him. 

He kisses her soundly, his fingers curled around the back of her neck, thumb caressing her jaw. He kisses her, and she thinks he makes her feel more alive than any CPR ever could. 

She presses her hand to his chest, to his heart, and she believes just for that moment that it belongs to her. There is no desire for him to find something that can’t exist within Konoha’s walls; there is no longing for something greater than her. 

She believes that she’s enough. 

He kisses her, fingers curled around her ribs, hunched over to wrap his arms around her waist. His nose skims her flat tummy, and she thinks oxygen has never been so sweet. 

The sunset glows pink and orange through the window, and she turns her head to the side to see the incandescent sight, brilliant through the open blinds, before her eyes squeeze shut and her legs are wrapped around his broad shoulders. Her hand strokes through his hair, and he nuzzles her. 

He kisses her, and she believes. 

–

(01:01:13:48:35)

“I love you,” he says one night into the shell of her ear.

She has expressed the sentiment to him a million different ways. It is in her insistence upon him keeping a first aid kit in his mission pack, in her cradling of the hard, angry parts of his being in her soft hands. 

It is in her smile, the laugh she reserves just for him, the softness of her lips when she says his name like a promise. 

It is in the many, many times she has made her feelings heard–yelled them into the skies, screamed them into the rain. 

( _We’ll always be happy! I’ll make everyday fun! Just…_ ) 

This is the first time he’s ever put his own into words. 

She laces their fingers together and tries to ignore the stinging in her eyes, tries to pretend that the roughness in his voice doesn’t sound like a goodbye. She clamps down the swelling of emotion in her trembling lips, and she exhales a shuddered breath. 

“I love you more,” she returns finally, meeting his gaze. 

She looks at the stars again, measuring the constellations against their time, and wonders if they’ll last the night. 

( _…stay with me._ )

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written to "switzerland" by daughter


	3. the woodlands

Sasuke is not easy to love. He knows this to be true, and doesn’t need the years of Naruto and Sakura and Kakashi’s anguish following after him as proof of this. His heart is made of crusty scales, his hands rough to the touch.

He thinks he is to blame for making himself this way.

Certainly, he wasn’t always like this. He can still remember his mother’s fond hands tickling at his sides, the peals of laughter, the natural placement of a toothy grin on his face.

These days, expressing affection is opening a mouth wide, a mouth with chapped lips and dry skin that has been wandering the desert for so long. The skin cracks and tears, and a dry tongue is unable to lap moisture at the wounds.

He is learning, though. He can acknowledge that much. He is learning how to drop his guard, learning how to take off his armor and relish the freedom. He is learning—fighting against everything he’s feared—that love is like water, and without it, there is only death.

He brings the bottle to his lips and guzzles after a long day of training, and Naruto, with a mischievous look in his deep blue eyes, yanks it from his grip and dumps it on his head. The ice water is quick to make its way down his back, and his neck and shoulders raise gooseflesh.

He scowls.

Sakura’s previously exhausted countenance unfolds to sheer amusement, and then she is rolling on the ground giggling. There are dirt and grass stains on the back of her clothes, and there are leaves in her hair, and she has never been more beautiful.

Naruto chuckles, too, arms folded across his chest expectantly. His light injuries do not take away from his competitive spirit one bit.

In another life, Sasuke would have barked out some threat and walked away, but he is learning slowly. So he takes the empty bottle and whacks Naruto upside the head.

Kakashi rolls his eyes and mutters something that sounds like  _children_ , and Naruto tells him to  _shut up, old man._ Sakura straightens, leaning back against the tree she was resting underneath before, and she crisply corrects him, telling him to address his Hokage with respect.

Naruto’s eyes widen at the steel in her tone, and he flinches away automatically, flinches like a Pavlovian response sewn into his skin.

Sasuke wonders if this is what home is meant to feel like.

He wonders why he still dreams of distant mountains, of tall spindly trees and the call of the wind. He wonders why the sky feels too tight around his arm span, and he wonders if he has forgotten what it is like to simply exist, to float along.

He does not know if it’s something he can learn. And yet…sometimes he knows he feels at ease here.

He wonders, if this feels right, why he still feels the need to escape. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title is a reference to being in the woods (as in "not out of the woods") as well as a nod to the greater houston area


	4. deep river

(00:00:04:00:34)

There is something in the way her lab coat flutters around her form as she’s walking back from the hospital, something in the way the wind moves. She has felt this feeling only once before, and she does not need to return home to discover the folded letter waiting for her there, stained script on paper, after her night shift.

The trees rustle quietly, secrets shared amongst leaves, and when they fall around her, she tips her head up to the sky, searching it for the moon that is not there.

And Sakura knows.

She knows in the way she can trace the scar through his chest in her memory, knows in the way that she will never love anyone as much as she loves him.

Her time has run out.

Her hands are loosely curled in her pockets, and her shoulders are back. Her head is held high, and she does not mind when the cool midnight breeze ruffles her hair, blowing strands into her face. Her feet take her to the end and the beginning all at once, and she does not need to turn around to know that he is there, a few steps behind her.

“Again?” her voice is resigned, a soft sigh. Everything aches, and there is nothing she wants more than to drench herself in sunlight and fall asleep.

Her gaze is focused on the edging of the gates, the way this is so much the same and so different.

“Sakura,” he begins, and it is at times like these that he makes her feel like her name is the most beautiful word in the world. He hesitates on his words. “I can’t stay.”

Her eyes sting, and even though she  _knows_  and has known for months, it burns. She nods numbly, and she sighs shakily. “I know.” Her brows pull together, and she blinks several times before turning around.

Meeting his eyes, so soft and for her, hurts, asphyxiates. She bites her lip, and she cannot look at the apology in them, so she looks away. “Just promise me one thing,” she says thickly, and before she can stop herself, she steps forward, closing the distance.

Touching him is instinctive. Her hands come up to trace the landscape of his face, and she has to swallow to keep back the words that threaten to spill out, words that sound like  _I love you._

He is so beautiful.

“What?”

She ducks her head, resting it just under the strong line of his chin. “Come home to me.”

He pulls away, tips her chin upwards, and then he is kissing her like the sun is dying, like he has found the threads sewing them together all these years. When he pulls away, tears slipped out of the corners of her eyes, and she’s looking at him like he’s already gone.

He presses his nose into her hair, and she shakes in his grip. She smells like antiseptic and soap and home. “Don’t say goodbye, whatever you do,” she whispers into his skin. “Don’t say goodbye.”

He shakes his head. “I won’t.”

Sakura doesn’t stay to watch him disappear into the distance, doesn’t stay to see him slip through her fingers again. She sits on the bench facing the trees and the training ground behind it, knees pulled up to her chest, and watches the way sun blooms pink over the horizon.

It does not feel warm. Not today.

(00:00:00:00:00)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title is an homage to "deep river" by quillslinger, a fanfic that has shaken and continues to shake me to my core  
> feel free to envision taylor swift crooning "wildest dreams"


	5. atonement

_Sasuke-kun,_

_You only just left the village, and I’m already writing you a letter. I keep saying to myself that you’ve been gone for almost four years now—what’s a few more?_

_I have never been patient like I am for you._

_Springtime has finally come to Konoha, and I couldn’t be more grateful. Ino’s much less cranky now that her blooms are budding and the flower shop can stop losing revenue from the weather. Naruto’s still slaving after Kakashi, and in a few months they’ll finally unveil his face on the mountainside._

_I am as I always am._

_Today at the hospital, I was doing back to back surgeries, and as I was stroking the skin around a tumor, I was struck by the fact that as time goes on, I have begun to forget what you feel like—your hands on my hips, your breath on my cheek. Still, the strangest things have begun to remind me of you—the whistle of the kettle which brings back the one morning we had tea in bed, and the gentle lapping of water which resurfaces the oceans that have been placed between us._

_I miss you._

_I hope this letter finds you well, and I hope you haven’t forgotten that you will always have a home here. Reply soon._

_Sakura_

_–_

_Sakura,_

_I’m currently at an inn in Sound. There’s something about this place that’s an echo of what it used to be, or maybe as time has passed my perspective has changed with it. The people here are aimless and stuck under the thumb of their de facto leader._

_There’s not enough money around for shelters, and all the remnants of the hideouts as long gone, only small hovels with vaguely familiar phantoms of the past in the midst._

_They look at me in apprehension, and I’m once again reminded of the debts I carry. I have offered my help with rebuilding a few things in the area, and I’m meeting with the only greengrocer and a woman that everyone refers to as being the wisest tomorrow to discuss their plans._

_I hope they will allow me to begin my amends. I’m retracing my steps, though, and I will do what I can before they will make me leave._

_I think of you every night, and the quiet mornings and crooning cicadas and rumpled bed sheets from sleepless nights don’t compare._

_I know I said that my sins were my own, but I have also begun to process that some things are better with teams than they are alone. Pass on to Naruto that, if possible, that Sound could use some aid in picking themselves up and beginning anew._

_Change can be hard._

_Sasuke_

_–_

_Sasuke-kun,_

_You’ll think I’m an annoying idiot when I tell you I cried over your letter, but I did. I’m happy that you have found something meaningful to put your time towards._

_All these years chasing after you, trying to get you to stay were hard, but watching you leave again was harder still. I know you said you’d return, but I had worried that your wanderings around the world would make you less at peace and more restless._

_I am so glad that is not the case._

_Naruto sent some emissaries to survey the area before deciding what a good course of action would be, but there are talks about transferring some of our green genin teams to begin to make a difference there. The rest of the village is still occupied with healing ourselves, but our young must learn early that in each of us, no matter what walk of life we’re from, there are similarities worth remembering._

_We are all, after all, people._

_The squeaky chair in my house finally gave out yesterday, and I bought a new plant to replace the one that died last time. I have high hopes for this little bud, and Ino promised she would watch over me watching over it._

_Sai…has decided he wants to “court” Ino, and a couple days ago, Hinata asked Naruto out. Can you believe it? He was the one who passed out this time. Don’t tell him I told you; he’ll wage a small war against me._

_Sometimes, I think about the future, and I can never figure out what I’m hoping for, but I always see you._

_Sakura_

_–_

_Sakura,_

_I helped build a city. I don’t know if it will ever be enough penance for using the people there for my own gain, but by the time I left, a woman with green eyes just like yours asked me to give a blessing for her son. She said I was proof that there is good in everyone, and it gives her hope that she can bring her child into a world where that’s true._

_I discovered darkness in Sound, and I hope that I brought it light._

_I left this afternoon, and it’s almost evening so I settled in a border town by Rain, my next destination. I don’t know what I’ll find there, but I know Itachi had spent a lot of his time there._

_I’m eating ramen for dinner, and I think somewhere, the idiot is dancing in this victory._

_The sky is clear—the last clear sky I’ll see in weeks since the monsoons are almost here. The air is warm and thick, and here, in the middle of nowhere, the sky is as full of stars as it was when I taught you the constellations._

_Fuck, Sakura. I haven’t been stationary, settled in almost half a decade, and somehow I still miss it. I don’t where home is, but even though it feels like I just left Konoha, I think it was beside you. There are parts of me that have never felt more at peace, but there is something in the grooves of my fingers that feels like longing._

_Sasuke_

_–_

_Sasuke-kun,_

_Everything aches. I don’t know how many acres or moons separate us, and I know the sky above me is the same as the one above you, but it does not help. There is a homesickness that has taken me, and I haven’t left the borders of the village in two months._

_I’m yearning for something like love, but you’ve whisked it away to the wilderness, and I can’t find it in myself to blame you for it. I want nothing more than your happiness, and I can wait, but it feels like I have loved you for a thousand years._

_I trained today for the majority of the day in order to prepare for the upcoming jounin exams, but it feels wrong to be taking these things without you. I can’t stop my life. It moves with or without me. You have been my cardinal north for years, but my magnet has broken and now I’m spinning, directionless._

_You are here, and you’re not here. There are missions I could take, but I refrain. I am stagnant and ceaseless in motion all at once, and I can do nothing but occupy my time with learning to live for me._

_The grass stains on my clothes and the daylight on my skin feel like being truly alive. I decided to take up painting, and I’m learning from Sai. Tsunade tells me to find something I love and do it every day, but my passions lie around healing and fighting, and in peacetime, neither of those are abundant. I think, perhaps, I could bring color to my life._

_I hope Rain is treating you well. Write me soon._

_Sakura_

_–_

_Sakura,_

_There is a garden in Rain that only blooms when it is pouring, and it reminds me of you. There is something about the constant showers that brings life. I’ve never seen a land more in bloom. Children dance in the rain here—something I was expressly forbidden to do when I was younger for fear of catching a cold—and life goes on._

_I have found nothing here to pinpoint as the wisps of Itachi’s life left behind, forgotten, but there is still something that has given me peace here. There are burn marks on the buildings from a conflict long forgotten, but there is also chatter and laughter._

_They are not the most established nation, and the people do not have much, but they are happy._

_I’m going to Snow, and from what Naruto’s told me, that’s where the jounin exams are taking place this year._

_I’ll see you there._

_Sasuke_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it hurts more to fall apart slow, to dream about warmth in the cold...now nothing I'm more than a whisper  
> \--"winter" by kina grannis


	6. the worst

There is no snow on her journey to Snow. The leaves crunch beneath her boots, brown and curled, and every inch of her travel reminds her of him. The night air is cool, and she thinks of his caress. Naruto’s laughter is buoyant, and she remembers the fond crinkle of his dark eyes.

The air is silent, the noiselessness oppressing, and she knots her fingers together behind her back as they walk forward, the lilting branches closing in on her.

She does not know why, but all at once the bubble of emotion she’d kept wrapped up for weeks—the smell of his letters, the loneliness, ink stained black on her hands, the pale skin of her patients, her own sallow complexion—comes up like burning acid and suddenly her lips are trembling and her eyes are stinging and the tears, hot and fast, slip down her face and soundlessly connect with her shirt.

Her shoulders shake, and the path blurs, and then all at once she’s sobbing, hoarse desperation scraping up the sides of her throat, and Naruto turns around just in time to see her shoulder collide with a tree trunk as she sinks to her knees, mud soft and cold against her skin.

Naruto’s hands are on her shoulders, and she bows her head, and his voice comes through like there’s a river between then, all rushing water and muddled noises. “Sakura-chan,” he pleads, and then softens. “Sakura.”

Bloodshot eyes meet his, woefully glossy and brimming with despair. “I can’t do this,” she whispers, leaning forward so the lines of her cheekbones are pressed into the crook of his neck.

His arms wrap around her, and then they are holding each other in the middle of a dark forest, her arms trembling, soft hiccups and loss coloring her movement. “Tell me.”

She mouths the words against his neck. “Waiting is the hardest thing.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @jhene aiko pls


	7. red herring

The bluff is quiet. Her feet shift in the wilting grass, eyes set in the distance.

Her gloved hands are tucked into the pockets of her red coat, and she thinks that Snow is among the most beautiful places she’s ever seen. Neither her own foggy breath nor the anxiety of an impending exam can hide that.

The city stretches out below her, and a land blanketed in white has spires of ice, evergreens in the snow, and crisp scarlet sloped roofs bringing color to what some would call desolation. It is clear to her, from this view, that even in the throes of winter, this land is alive.

The sky is clouded and swollen, and the wind is blistering against her face, red rising on the curves of her cheeks. She waits.

It does not take long for him to come, and she doesn’t need to turn around to know that the sudden shift in the wind, the warmth that rises to her cheeks is all him. She licks her dry lips, and she doesn’t say a thing. The months of distance come to a close as his fingers, icy from exposure, brush her nape, curl around her hair’s new length—a meager centimeter more than when he last saw her. “You’re letting it grow,” he observes, and her eyes soften at his tone.

So soft, so soft.

“I want it long enough where I can put it in a ponytail without it looking ridiculous,” she explains, a barely-there tremble in her voice.

They settle back into silence, and when he finally takes the last few steps so his chest bumps against her shoulder, her eyes slip shut, and she exhales. She allows the tension to melt off of her bones, and she unwinds back onto him.

Her eyes are wet as the snow begins to drift down, as his fingers weave together with hers.

So soft, so soft.

She waits. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "immensities" by craig armstrong and a.r. rahman (from the elizabeth: the golden age score)


	8. letters

Sasuke is not there when she ascends to a new height, gains the next step in becoming another sort of legendary. He does not witness the way her chin tilts in pride, does not know how she incited a standing ovation among the private audience in the arena tucked in the mountains.

He does not see her hugged by two teachers in succession, the only shinobi since the Third to have had two different Hokages as mentors.

He does not watch her ascend into legend, watch her turn shards of ice lethal, watch her crack the ground open in a genjutsu, watch her heal her opponent back into perfect health. She is benevolent and fierce, but he is not there to see it.

Instead, he leans against window of her room, his back against the frosty glass, and combs through his new discovery.

More letters.

He does not know why she keeps these in her medical pack, tucked between the cotton gauze and medical tape he’d needed for his frost-bitten palms, but they are all about love.

_–_

_Tou-san,_

_I’m sorry for yelling at you in front of my friends. I love you, and your puns will always make me smile, but I was embarrassed, and I should have never been. Ino-pig is going to call me a green bean for the next week because of this, but that’s okay._

_You’re tied for my favorite person in the whole wide world, and I should never be anything but happy to be around you, even if you do make really lame jokes._

_It’s part of what makes you you, though, and I never want to change that._

_Your daughter,_

_Sakura_

_–_

_Sasuke-kun,_

_It’s been a year since you left, and I’ve been training really hard with Tsunade-sama! She teaches me something new every day, and each moment with her feels like a step closer to you._

_I started to work on real patients, finally, and being part of something that involves actually saving lives is the most fulfilling thing I’ve ever experienced. I delivered a baby yesterday, and seeing a mother so, so happy is…it was beautiful._

_You are so far gone that sometimes I try to remember what you look like and I cannot place it unless I look at photos._

_I miss you._

_Sakura_

_–_

_Sakura,_

_I owe you an apology. I am here for you first and foremost. I’m just…afraid. I want you in my arms for as long as possible, but the hardest challenge of motherhood is letting go._

_You are an adult, now, and I couldn’t be more proud of the person you’ve turned into._

_I know this is your life, and I know these are your loved ones, and I am not in a place where I could ever ask you to pull away from that. But you cannot blame me for being who I have always been: a mom._

_War is a terrifying thing, and although I’ve gotten used to the fact that every time you go on a mission you may not return, a battlefield is quite another. Where I see you—the capable, brilliantly smart, strong woman you are—I still see my baby, red bow and all._

_I will never not want to keep that safe._

_I love you._

_Kaa-san_

_–_

_Izumi,_

_If you get this letter from Sakura-sama, it means I’m gone. I know in our last days we avoided talking about the risks, about the never-ending battle with time, but I want you to know this: even from the other side, I don’t regret anything._

_I spent my last moments thinking only of you. I spent all my moments getting lost in you._

_Nothing will compare to that._

_I know I never told you, but this is better late than never: I love you._

_I want nothing more than for you to be happy._

_Naoya_

–

_Sakura-san,_

_Your beauty is not nearly as remarked upon as much as your strength, but the first time I woke to see you hovering above me, brow furrowed in concern as you patted down my torn up face with stinging medicine, it was all I could think about._

_It’s all I can still think about. The gentleness of your smile, the kindness in your touch._

_I know romance in the midst of war is not really something you probably wish to partake in, but there is only so much time in this world, and I wish to spend at least a little more of it with you._

_Hideki_

_–_

_Sasuke-kun,_

_Why did you have to leave again? Why do you have to feel like you must do everything on your own? I have known for months now that you’ve been thinking about it, but watching you walk away again and letting it happen is one of the hardest—_

_–_

_Sasuke-kun,_

_I—_

_I don’t understand. Well, that’s—_

_No. I understand. I know you have done many things that burden you, but by now you should know you don’t have to carry that on your own._

_–_

_Sasuke,_

_Please come home. Please come home to me._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to, I just want to know if you're gonna, if you're gonna stay   
> \--"riptide" by vance joy


	9. retrouvailles

He drops his guard as she peels off his clothes, fingers carefully unbuttoning and tugging at the back of his shirt, the quiet rustle of fabric the only noise in the room. Her hands skate along his spine, pulling upwards at the enduring fabric as he releases her just long enough for the clothes to slip over his head.

She unbuttons his pants with familiarity, and not even the months that have taken away from her muscle memory. She takes her time relearning him, pressing kisses along his broad shoulders, along the remains of the arm that doesn’t exist. She treats him like he’s fragile, like handling him too roughly will make the illusion dissipate.

They are pressed together, and she looks so unbearably sad, and he cannot take his eyes off of her.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he feels compelled to say, and she breaks her gaze with the scar marring his chest to lock eyes with him.

There is skepticism in her face, and she shakes her head, her reply soft. “Aren’t you?”

He doesn’t get a chance to respond because then she is standing on her tippy toes, bare feet straining against carpet to reach him. Even when he is in front of her, she finds as her lips slide against his, he is too far away.

His hand skims down her neck as he slides the zipper of her top all the way down, her pants already long discarded. She is warm, and he nudges her onto the bed, teeth pulling at her bottom lip as he follows her down, crawling above her.

There is no exaggerated foreplay, and their time apart has ensured that neither of them want anything else but to feel some kind of completion, some level of wholeness. He tugs her panties off and sinks into her with a hard thrust.

She gasps, and he leans over, tugging the straps of her bra down to pull her breasts out of the cups, his hand covering one peak as his hips rock back and forth.

“Sakura,” he says suddenly, and her eyes crack open, hazy with pleasure.

“Mhmm?” she croons in return, hands relearning the lines of his shoulder blades, the length of his corded back, the tension in his abs, the bones of his hips.

His voice is rough when he gets the words out, breath hot against her face. “Come with me.”

Everything in her unravels at once, and her limbs lose their energy as she stares at him in blatant shock. He stops moving, still seated deep inside of her, and waits for her to wrap her mind around his request.

“Come…with you…?” she repeats shallowly, and he strokes over her side, pressing kisses to the curve of her breast, raking his teeth over her puckered nipple.

“Yes.”

“On…on your travels?” she arches as she clarifies, daring to hope, her skin shiny with sweat. Her mind is in two places, on the sensations and the gravity of the moment.

He discovers a cut unattended to on the back of her forearm, and he kisses it. “Yes.”

She pushes his hair back from his forehead, turning his face so his dark eyes meet hers. Her fingers are delicate on his jaw, and she looks at him in wonderment. She turns them over so she’s above him, and when she slides her tongue in his mouth, she grinds hard against his hips, drawing a hoarse groan from him. A sweet smile curls at her lips, and when she pulls away, she looks like daybreak.

“Okay.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> retrouvailles (n; french) the happiness of finding someone after a long separation


	10. landsailor

It is with a formal bow, eyes focused on Kakashi’s shoes, that she says goodbye. He places a fond hand on her head, and accepts the headband she hands him in return. “I’ll be back,” she promises.

His gaze is proud when he follows it up with, “You’d better.”

The blistering wind is dry and cold, raking along her cheeks until they’re red. It does not let up until they are safely out of Snow, passing through the rocky, moss covered base of the mountain chain in an eastward direction towards Lightning. They travel in a comfortable silence interspersed with bits of conversation, but there is something about the air between them that feels natural.

They run through the night, finally stopping as the horizon grows pink in a little village on the base of the mountainside, a scant few hours from their destination. The young family running the bed and breakfast is welcoming, and Sakura heals their son of his pesky bruises as a token of her appreciation before sluggishly trudging towards their shared room.

“It’s the least I could do,” she shrugs. The boy’s mother beams, and it reminds Sasuke of all the reasons he wanted to redeem himself.

There is an ambience that follows Sakura wherever she goes, one that he is sure was not with him prior to her accompaniment on his travels. People open up to her. She is springtime, and they are buds she pries apart simply by being. On the off chance they recognize her trademark pink hair and gawk over the stories that follow her—much better than the nightmares that follow him—she gains friends, favors, and free knick knacks in the process.

It is a talent he knows he will never acquire, and he cannot help but be envious.

Even so, when she shops around in the small market for a sweater, her playful gaze as she puts on a silly vest is all for him. Her knuckles brushing his as they walk along the dimply lit roads later in the evening, the whispers in the middle of the night—these, he thinks, he cannot bring himself to regret.

Still, she packs like this is a reprieve, a getaway, gathering trinkets in her pockets and taking silly photos in photo booths with him. She insists that they do at least some sightseeing, because the world is too big to not have experienced all it has to offer.

Her face lights up when she talks about Konoha, when she says the word home. The months apart, the years he’s been gone, have only served to bind her closer to it, and as much as she says that he is everything, he does not believe it.

For her, home is out there, miles away behind a forest of leaves, dappled in sunshine. For him, it is in her arms.

The weeks pass, and finally it becomes something he cannot deny any longer: she does not belong here.  

Things are good for them, in spite of it all. There is no doubt that she is there for him when there is a chance to repent, the two of them praying side by side in a small shrine. She is proud when he catches petty thieves and returns stolen goods, and her smile is warm when he does simple deeds like picking up litter.

They train together in the foggy mornings, share quiet meals, and kiss like it’s a habit.

He looks at her like she’s a dream.

And perhaps she is, because he knows. He knows it is only a matter of time until she wants to leave, before she asks him to come back with her.

And he does not know how he will tell her no. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to be your bride in full, shield my eyes no more  
> \--"landsailor" by vienna teng


	11. impressions

She paints him when he sleeps.

Her few lessons with Sai had been put to good use, and when he’s out partaking in a refurbishing project of the community center, she shops for a canvas and oil paints. The art store is small but well packed, and the narrow aisles are crammed with colors.

The elderly man at the counter is quick to help her select the right skin tones. He shows her to the best sketching pencils, but she rejects them gently. She knows Sasuke’s form too well to need a rough draft, and she only has so much pocket money to spare.

The darkest gray for his eyes, a blushing pink for his kiss-swollen lips. She paints him when he sleeps, his figure steeped in daybreak. His hair is mussed, and his chest rises and falls slowly. His knuckles are bandaged carefully, and the white sheets are soft on his skin, and he is beautiful.

The chair is stiff against her back, but still she sets up the cheap easel, tracing the lines of his neck.

Her brush memorizes the curve of his lip, the smoothness of his ear, and she is hiccupping back tears by the time he rouses, blending in the angles in his face. He looks so at peace, and he is calm, and there is nothing in him that begs to return.

He is happy here.

“Sakura?” he asks, voice drowsy. She shakes her head, setting the brush down on her paper towel, rubbing at her tears with the backs of her palms.

“It’s nothing. Go back to sleep.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this time, inspired by art: henri de toulouse-lautrec's "in bed" series  
> \+ "elegy for dunkirk" by dario marianelli (from the atonement score)


	12. nostalgia

He watches an elderly man hobble across the street with a cone of ice cream for his grandchild as he sweeps the rubble of the rebuild into a pile, handling a broom with finesse. Part of this reminds him deeply of the missions he did as a genin, painting fences and rescuing cats.

But he’s a different person, and he thinks that he’ll write to Kakashi and suggest that Naruto implement a practice of having all their shinobi take one D-rank every six months.

There is something in helping others that reminds him of what his place in the world is.

He watches life move around him, and thinks of Sakura, whose red-rimmed eyes and paint stained hands greeted him in the morning. She showed him the canvas later on, and he didn’t need his Sharingan to see the longing in every stroke.

She promised after a shower that she was going to help out at the local hospital, but something in the way her gaze lingered on the painting made him think she would probably do something different. It doesn’t surprise him, then, to see her walking across the market towards the post office, a letter in hand.

He wonders who it’s for, and then thinks it’s better not to ask.

Her head is ducked, and her clothes are light and comfortable. She has not noticed him, and he knows it is better this way. She stops suddenly at the photography studio on the side, and her fingers press almost reverently against the glass.

He doesn’t need to walk over to know that she’s looking at the framed Konoha mountainside in the window. Her shoulders sag, and he can feel the time knocking, waiting patiently to take her back.

(10:04:39:20:58)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ouch


	13. riptide

“This’ll be nice, you know. For the Konoha summertime.”

Silence follows her words, and Sakura pulls off the newly purchased floppy sunhat slowly, the woven material a bare whisper against her hair. The similarly new dress, an unsurprising dark red, stops in its flowing tracks to brush her kneecaps.

He doesn’t say anything, and her lips purse. “Only three more months until it’s hot enough,” she remarks again, attempting to goad some response out of him, but his gaze is firmly set on the map in front of him.

“I think we should head to Water next,” he carefully suggests. He doesn’t look at her.

But Sakura has changed over the years, and she won’t back down without her answer. “Sasuke-kun,” she says heavily, and sits down in the chair opposite him, tugging the map out of his hands, forcing him to meet her eyes. She sets her hat on the table. “When do you intend on returning?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know.”

She breathes. “What do you mean you don’t know?”

Absolute silence. She laces her fingers together tightly, and finally, when she can look at him no longer, she gets up robotically and turns away, sliding her shoes off before her feet meet the carpet.  

She pauses in her step and turns, and when she does, her face looks sunken. “It’s your  _home_ ,” she impresses, and is about to walk away when—

“It’s not my home. It’s  _yours_. Just go back if you miss it so much.”

Her breath catches in her throat. “What?! No! I said I wanted to be  _here_ —and what do you mean it’s not your home? It’s where—you grew up there! You have friends there! Your history is all there!” She wants to scream it, but she can’t— _you have me there._

“Fuck, Sakura. I haven’t been in Konoha for almost five years now. I don’t have a home anymore.”

Her throat constricts, and her eyes burn. “Yes, you  _do_. But if you insist on that not being your home, then it’s not mine, either. My home is with you.”

The words are acid from his throat, and he’s suddenly reminded of all the dimensions that separated them, the spaces, her arm bubbling from a burn. “No, it’s not. You belong in Konoha,” and the words feel like the sun, burning and honest. She’s too far from her roots, and she’s wilting. “You always have. Just…” and he swallows, “just go.”

Her lips thin, and her eyes are flinty. “If you are so insistent upon me leaving, then  _why_  did you ask me to come with you?”

“Because of your—” he stops, squeezing his eyes shut. He rubs a hand over his face.

“Because of my  _what,_ Sasuke-kun?”

He stands up abruptly, walking over to her medical pouch and going through the gauze packet. He finds the letters with ease, pulling them out almost violently, and the last one tears at the edges, caught on the teeth of the zippered pouch.

“ _Please come home. Please come home to me,”_ he bites out, and when he looks up, she’s crying.

The tears have managed to make their way to her chin, collecting there and waiting to drop. “You…” The words are shaky. “You read my letters.”

“I did.”

“You  _read_  my  _letters_ ,” she hisses this time, and her hands are curled into fists. She still hasn’t stopped crying and she  _hates_ it. With his every movement, he makes her feel weak and she wipes them away furiously, as if taking away the symptom will remove the disease.

“I did.”

“You…is this some kind of act of pity? You took me with you because you felt  _bad?”_

He doesn’t respond, and suddenly she wants nothing more than to run away because he’s  _right._ Konoha  _is_  her home. She lives and breathes it. The Will of Fire is ingrained in the curves of her aorta, pressed into the contractions of her heart.

She ignores the parts of her that scream that home is where the heart is.

“Rest assured, Sasuke, I have lived many years without you. I can do many more just fine. So…so  _fuck you_. You know, for someone who claims that he loves me, you have a funny way of showing it.”

He looks away as she packs her bag in silence. He cannot bear to meet her eyes that have always been so good at reading him. She doesn’t bother to take her summer hat, doesn’t bother to change out of the dress. Her canvas painting of him is left on the easel, the brushes still scattered by the window sill. She doesn’t even reclaim her letters.

She leaves, and the door shuts behind her without a sound.

It is the loudest break he has ever heard.

(-00:00:00:01:19)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my hand slipped
> 
> my true love is a man who never existed all  
> \--"blue caravan" by vienna teng


	14. civil wars

He spends the day in her wake cleaning her presence from this life, but it is an impossible task.

In the month and a half that they’d stayed in Lightning, the small apartment they’d leased had become imbued with her.

A frivolous floral tea set is restrained to a cabinet he’d never open again, the pile of blankets on the couch where she liked to curl up and read are set aside in a box underneath their—no, his—bed.

Her hat is whisked away, the coffee table moved back to its original position, too far to prop feet upon. The box of homemade sweets the neighbor had given her as a housewarming gift are dumped in the trash.

He stares at the painting of him in the waning light, fingers hesitant against the texture of hardened oil paint–the whorls in the curves of his shoulders, the long sweeping lines in the mussed sheets. He stares at the attention given to his relaxed face, the dark lines of his eyelashes, and after a long moment, he quietly picks up the painting and places it at the back of the closet.

She is a specter he can’t shake.

Her smell is in the sheets, and in the weeks to follow, he wakes every morning in the dull light believing the pink of the sunrise to be her. Her rose petal hair, her mischievous smile. He doesn’t notice her toothbrush is still there until he knocks over the cup, and his fingers wrap around the offending green thing, snapping it in half.

He goes in the morning to the old shrine he and Sakura had visited in the fog, and as his knees reunite with the cool stone, his hands clasping together in the way his mother had always taught him, he tries to erase her from his memory.

It is better this way, he tells himself. It has to be.               

The walk back down the mountainside is slow and tempestuous. The leaves play tricks on him, and the overhanging trees are a reminder of a time when she’d pressed her face into the space between his shoulder blades, weeping for him.

He squeezes his eyes shut, and for a few days, he throws himself back into work. He builds a school, repaves a road, trains until his knuckles bleed.

But still, he returns to their space, and for all the distance placed, he cannot escape her.

He steps on a bobby pin hidden in the carpet, bright red and assuredly hers. His lips tremble, teeth clench, and the heat he’d been holding back for so long burns his eyes, angry tears prickling.

With a shout, he punches a hole through the wall.

He sinks to the ground, hands fisting in the worn carpet, and he succumbs to the truth: there will be no forgetting Haruno Sakura. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "hotel sayre" by craig armstrong and lana del rey (from baz luhrmann's the great gatsby)


	15. blue caravan

Izumo says:  _She walks different, now. You know, years of guard duty kind of let you in on cues from people, and Sakura’s walk isn’t the same anymore. It’s…like she’s lugging around rocks now._

_Can’t be good for her posture, really._

–

Sakura walks through the gates at mid-morning on a generally unremarkable day. The clovers have just begun to bloom on the crests of the hills. She’s clean and uninjured and wears a smile on her lips as she passes the guard station, kind greetings set in place.

Izumo waves jovially, and she stops to chat for a while before continuing on her journey to check in to the Hokage tower. Her reinstatement as a citizen of Konoha, she says, is going to take a few weeks to process in paperwork, and the earlier she files it, the better.

Kotetsu elbows Izumo when he opens his mouth to voice concern, and she waves goodbye.

Her footsteps recede in the distance, rubber soles grazing the concrete.

She is unchanged in most things—maybe a little older; the months have taken some of her for their own. Maybe a little mellower; the distance has scattered some of her brilliance along the winding roads.

She does not have Sasuke in tow with her. Among all things—the way the moon was awake while the sun was, the additional trinkets rustling in her backpack, the slightly puffy eyes—this is the one fact that stands out.

Sakura Haruno comes home empty handed.

–

Kakashi says:  _Sakura…she’s fine. She’s working herself to the bone as usual, and she’s opted to do some of my paperwork, so I can’t complain. The new pups like to spend their time at her apartment, though, and they never tell me anything about their time there. I think she’s bribing them with kibble to keep silent. Wily of her._

_She’s…she’s changed, a bit, from her travels. Something a little worldlier about her. It’s…actually, now that I’m thinking about it, it reminds me of me a long time ago._

–

Kakashi watches as she crouches on the floor of his office, wide smile on her lips as she fawns over the new puppies wiggling on the blanket. Pakkun had finally found a lady friend, and the small, squirming wrinkly fluff balls on the floor and in her arms were his litter.

“I can’t believe I missed this,” she breathes in wonder. “I’m…Kakashi-sensei, tell Pakkun congratulations for me.”

He nods and after a few more minutes of cooing, she wrenches herself away and stands back up, approaching his desk. “I’d like to refile for citizenship.”

Kakashi glances at the drooping bags framing her lackluster gaze, but makes no comment either way. “Yeah, I’ll get started on that. In the meanwhile,” he says smoothly, retrieving her headband from his desk, “this belongs to you.”

She nods, accepting the hitai-ate without comment. Her hand tightens around the red cloth, knuckles whitening. “If it’s all right with you, I’ll come back to fill out the paperwork later. I’d just really love a shower. It’s been a long journey.”

He nods again, slowly, and she’s turning and walking away when he calls her. She stops in her step, muscles in her shoulders bunching in tension, and he walks from behind his desk to face her. He’s not a man of affection, but hugging her takes nothing out of him. Her fingers curl in the stiff material of his ever present flak jacket, and she shudders a breath. He pretends he can’t feel her swallowing back words.

“Welcome home,” he pats her back encouragingly before pulling away, and her smile is watery when she looks up.

“Thank you.”

–

Sai says:  _Ugly quit painting lessons. I read up a bit on severing bonds, since this reminds me a bit of that, and I have come to the conclusion that Ugly no longer wants to be friends. She no longer trains with the team as much, she doesn’t paint, and she looks…not quite dead, but empty sometimes. Blank like a canvas._

_In conclusion, I have to say that Ugly no longer wants to be around people._

_I would be lying if I said I wasn’t sad._

–

He shows up in her apartment two days later with Naruto in tow. “Training’s at the same time it’s always been,” Naruto chirps, bounding into the kitchen to lean against the counter.

Sakura is sitting at the wooden table, hair mussed from sleep. Her face is sallow, more shadowed than it used to be. She’s reading the paper and nursing a cup of lukewarm tea, and all in all, it seems like little has changed. She smiles as she looks up, toes wriggling the way they always have whenever she’s pleased about something.

“I know, Naruto,” she replies calmly, not perturbed about their barging in unannounced. “Hi, Sai,” she turns to greet him from where he is lingering, unsure, at the threshold. He takes a few steps forward, and even though he has been in her apartment many times before, it has been a while, and something is different.

She is living out of her travel pack, he realizes, when he sees the scattered clothes on the couch, the blankets pooled on the floor as if she’d tossed them down there after getting up. The bedroom door is closed. The window is open.

“Sakura,” he greets, closing the door behind him. “You look hung-over,” he points out.

Something that might have resembled irritation almost surfaces but not before it’s quelled by resignation. “I am a bit, actually. I had a little too much last night.”

It doesn’t take a lot to notice that there, almost hidden by the blankets on the floor, is a cup and a few empty bottles.

Naruto frowns. “That’s not like you.”

She gets up slowly, walking to the sink. The cup clatters noisily against the metal basin. Her back is to them when she finally responds, and the words are stilted, a forced joke as she turns the faucet on. “What, a girl can’t have fun?”  

–

Lee says:  _Radiant Sakura is no longer radiant and full of youth. It is quite sad, and is apparent she is suffering from some kind of life imbalance. I told her to join me for 300 laps around Konoha in the mornings and afternoon meditation, but she declined._

_How terrible it is to have a heart slowly consumed before your eyes._

–

She splits her time between the mechanics of training and the nuances of genetic engineering. When she’s not trying to regain the physique she’d had at the time of her exam months ago, she’s laying in the sun of the field, flat on her stomach, intently reading through textbooks.

Lee watches her as she is single-minded in her intentions. She is well enough, he thinks as she hums while reading, scribbling notes in the margins and highlighting words, but she is not happy.

He can’t tell how he knows, because for all intents and purposes, she’s much the same. She’s cheery and benevolent, purposeful and smart. But something is different.

Sakura stops while reading all of a sudden, exhaling in a shudder, and presses her forehead to the pages, closing her eyes.

Lee swallows and turns away.

–

Shikamaru says:  _I don’t involve myself in these kinds of things. Sakura’s a good friend, she’s smart, she’s still doing her work, and she’s doing well. It’s not my business to speculate further._

_What do you mean that’s not good enough? God, Ino, who gives a—_

_Fine. Fine. If you ask me, she looks lonely._

–

She goes to the flower shop to pick up her plants when Ino is away. Shikamaru is slumped behind the counter, apron tied around his waist, and despite everything, it brings a smile to her face. “You look nice,” she teases, and he scowls.

“Ino forces me into it whenever she has—”

“Torture and interrogation rotations to do, I know. Or head of clan business, I imagine, as well.”

“Yeah,” he nods, and then frowns. “She’s going to be pissed that you finally came by while she wasn’t here.”

She bites her lip, staring at the clock on the shelf intently. “It was the only day I had free. Hospital’s got a slow day today, and I’m waiting for lab samples before I move further on my research.”

He nods, staring at her speculatively, and she shifts uncomfortably, fingering a rose petal. “So…my plants?”

“Right,” he confirms, getting up and shuffling to the back room. He sees out of the corner of his eye that as she turns away, she sighs, rubbing her arms self-consciously. Handling the pots with care, he returns with the cactus and the four small glass jars of herbs Ino had set on the back counter shelf. “Here you go,” he hands them off to her in a box for easy carrying, and she smiles.

“They’ve grown,” she notes in surprise, peering at the taller stalks of cilantro.

“Plants tend to do that,” he drawls. “You’ve been gone for a while, so…changes happen.”

She averts her eyes. “Right. Well, tell Ino I said hi, I suppose. And thank you. I should leave more often,” she makes an attempt at a joke, “because my plants are always so much better off in her care.” He raises his eyebrows, and she sighs. “Well, see you around,” she manages after a moment of awkwardness and turns on her heel, quickly walking out.

He stares at her as she shoulders through the afternoon crowd outside, receding into the throng.

“Right.”

–

Naruto says:  _Don’t even get me started. I’m so…I’m so fucking pissed at Sakura-chan, of all people. I’m not even angry at Sasuke._

_Okay yes I am. But I’m so…so…infuriated by the fact that she’s trying to pretend like everything’s okay, and like things are great, and that being back in Konoha is great, and this food is great, and the weather is great, and I love her, y’know? She’s one of the best people I know._

_But she’s got to stop trying to lie to me. She should know that she doesn’t need to do that._

–

“Naruto, I promise everything is okay. I told you this already.” Sakura pats his back as he shows up, for the sixteenth day in a row at her apartment, demanding an explanation.

He snarls, ripping himself away from her touch as he stands abruptly. The chair he was sitting is knocked over at the force of his movements. “Bull _shit_.” His words are brittle. He glares at her, and she in turn sighs, rubbing her face tiredly.

“I don’t know what you want from me,” she say almost hollowly.

“I just want you to be fucking  _real_  with me,” he yells, knocking over a cup on the table, and it shatters as it hits the floor. She flinches.

“I liked that cup,” she mumbles towards the porcelain, and his hands slam down on the table.

“ _Fuck the cup. I just…_ ” he leans forward, and suddenly he looks unbearably sad, and Sakura cannot look at him anymore. She stares at her folded hands, fighting the burning in her lungs, the itching to scream back. But it is too much effort, and she doesn’t have the capacity, and exhaustion is easier. “I just don’t understand. I just…you’re family, Sakura-chan,” he says quietly, and the whispers cut deeper than his yells ever could.

Her lips tremble, eyes prickling with tears.

“Why don’t you trust me?”

“I do,” she implores, finally meeting his gaze again. “I do trust you. More than anyone. I’m just…” she bites her lip, and he slowly picks up the chair, sitting back down, waiting. She’s ten seconds from telling him the truth, but then she stares at the glass, and she squeezes her eyes shut.

“I’m fine,” she says. “Really.”

He walks out the door, but the tears spill over even before the latch clicks shut. In the empty space of her apartment, Sakura cries.

–

Ino says:  _She’s gone away somewhere, and if it takes interrogating everyone in this damned town, I’ll do it. I’ll do it all to find her._

_I just…I just miss my Sakura._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lantern burning, flickered in my mind for only you  
> but you're still gone, gone, gone  
> \--"this love" by taylor swift


	16. winter

He walks along the marshes, the reeds crumpling beneath his measured steps. The air is opaque, all fog and dusk, and it is here that an old woman accosts him. She’s wearing chains of gold around the sagging skin of her neck; rings on her skinny fingers glint in the orange light.

“You there,” she calls, a command and a croak.

Sasuke, even after all these years, recalls his mother’s strict warnings about speaking with strangers, but he is grown and his mother is dead and there is something about the manner in which this old woman speaks to him that makes him stop.

He does not bother to turn around. “Yes?”

She hobbles towards him. “I have a gift for you.”

He looks down at the mud beneath his sandals. “You don’t know me.”

“Boy, I have your future.”

He turns. She fixes her beady eyes on him, wrinkles sagging over her eyelids. Her gray hair wafts like steam out of its careful bun.

“Give me your hand,” she instructs, holding her palm out. Her fingers tremble, unsteady from the years that press down upon her. He reaches out, but before they can make contact, she pulls away, hand drawn to her chest, clutching at the chains. Her words flow. “There are many roads. You have the opportunity to take them all, and then some. You’ve done a great deal already, but you keep searching. Something is missing–”

“What?” Sasuke’s eyes widen a fraction.

“—and whatever it is, you cannot move forward until you have it.” She gasps a breath, eyes glinting in the setting sun.

His hand drops to his side. “You didn’t read my palm.”

She shook her head. “I can see it. I don’t need your hand. It’s in your eyes.” Her hands snap towards him suddenly, gripping his forearms tighter than he’d anticipated for a small, elderly woman. Her short nails drag at his cotton sleeves.  

Annoyed, he shakes her off and turns his back to her. “You’re a fraud.”

Her last words are earnest; they glide in the wind. “There can be no life, Sasuke, without love. Surely you must know that.”

He turns around swiftly, and his vision is red. He is poised to grab a shuriken from his weapons pouch, but by then she is already gone. Only her footsteps, still pressed into the muddy earth, are evidence that she was real.

–

He’s charming.

He’s been nattering on about his sister for the past few minutes, the miso in front of him growing tepid. The scallions have slowed to a lazy swirl in the bowl. His hands are animated, and she can see the carefully clipped nails, the soft skin of the pads of his fingers. The hands of a man who’d kept himself tucked away within the white walls of the operating room. “And she really admires you, you know, Sakura. Says you’re her hero. I promised I’d get an autograph for her.”

She blinks, eyes refocusing on him. His lashes are long, the same dark brown as his hair. “You got a pen?” she replies after a long moment, smile tipping onto her face.

He blinks. “Oh. No.”

There’s a beat of silence, and then he begins to laugh, and after a few seconds she joins him. He’s nice, she thinks. He is kind, and he is normal. “When the check comes, I’ll write something on the back of the receipt,” she promises between giggles.  

She spoons the last of her miso into her mouth, watching the waiters flit from table to table.

“I really like you.” He says this so earnestly that when her head snaps to him, her cheeks are already burning. He is smiling, and his neck is red, and he looks like he’s on the verge of recanting.

“Oh,” she manages. Her fingers close on the edge of the table.

“I’m sorry,” he rushes. “I just—”

“No,” she interrupts, reaching across the table to place her hand on his. She ignores the dull throb in her chest. “No, it’s okay. I just wasn’t expecting that. It’s very sweet. You’re very sweet.”

Her throat dries when, just behind him, she sees Ino walking past the restaurant. Her blonde hair is swept over her shoulder, and they lock eyes. Ino’s gaze is sharp as it connects with their hands, and Sakura draws back, heart thumping.

There is something in her best friend’s face that speaks of scorn.

“I’m glad you think so.”

Sakura swallows, and she tries so hard to do him justice, but her thoughts are wild. His hands are too soft—not roughened from years of hard labor. His smile is too trusting for someone he barely knows. He may have been a genin at some point, but he’s not meant for her lifestyle. She closes her eyes and she sees the blur of the war, feel the tingle of her burning shoulder.

He wouldn’t have lasted ten seconds.

“I…need to go to the bathroom. Excuse me,” she breathes, and stands quickly. As she walks, her blood rushes in her ears, tears sting in her eyes, and all she can think is Sasuke, Sasuke, Sasuke.

–

The port city is damp. The monsoons have only begun in Lightning, and already the ground is saturated. The sky grumbles, and it takes only a scant few seconds for the drops to tap on his cloaked shoulders.

He ducks into a bar on the side of the road, the dim lighting and noisy clink of glasses promising both warmth and a place to forget. He does not recall sitting or ordering, but soon a drink is across from him, and it is the honeyed color of reprieve. It is automatic when he swallows the first glass, the amber liquor cool on his tongue. The burn barely registers, and he unfastens the cloak from around him, throwing it over the back of the barstool.

“Traveling somewhere?” the barkeep asks, mixing something pink in front of him (the color of Sakura’s blush, he thinks distantly) for the woman two seats down. She keeps looking at him.

He grunts. “Another.” He licks his lips, leaning heavily on his elbows on the counter—cherry wood, he recognizes belatedly. It has been weeks since he has felt so relaxed. The warmth fills his limbs, and he doesn’t know how much time passes, but soon the barkeep is giving him a glass of water.

“Take it slow, man. You don’t want to forget a woman like this.”

Sasuke’s thoughts, slow and staggered, come in spurts. “Wh…I didn’t tell you what it’s about.”

The man shrugs, scratching his scraggly beard. “I can tell.” He’s polishing glasses now, laying them out in rows.

“You and that fucking old lady…” Sasuke snarls, anger bubbling like fizz. His jaw clenches, and he squeezes his eyes shut.

The man raises his hands up, one clutching a white rag. “All right, all right. If you don’t want to talk, some of my regulars like to deal a different way.”

Sasuke cracks an eye open. “How?”

The barkeep nods his chin at the woman, still sitting, still staring, just next to him. He turns to look. She isn’t bad looking—dark brown hair in waves, curvy enough. As soon as he makes eye contact with her, she slides off the stool, walking toward him. Her fingers curl around his bicep, and she leans close to his face. Her breath smells like mint and alcohol.

“Hi,” she says, lips brushing his ear. He can feel the lip gloss that rubbed off there, and when her hand drops from his arm to his thigh, he tenses. Her breasts are pressed against his side, and if he’s honest with himself, he can see himself fucking her.

He knows it would be good.

She’s quick to press kisses to his neck, but they’re all in the wrong places. “I can be good to you, you know,” she croons. Her hand strokes up to his hip, and he closes his eyes, remembering that Sakura’s hands are different from this.  

The room becomes dizzyingly clear, and then he is pushing her off. He is too rough, and she stumbles backward, elbow and ribs colliding with the structural column behind them.

He stands, grabs his cloak, and tosses money on the counter, coins clattering in sharp contrast to the hum of conversations and the patter of rain against the roof. “I don’t want this,” he says, and he’s not sure who he’s talking to, but it’s all he repeats as he walks out the door and down the street to the docks.

He is soaking wet by the time he gets there, the waves splashing up on the wood to finish the job that the rain didn’t. He rents a boat without too much fuss. “I don’t want this; I don’t want this; I don’t want this.”

He leaves for Snow.

–

Sakura is nervous when she opens the doors to the Academy. The floors are the same scuff-marked linoleum of her memories, but the paint on the walls is new. There are bulletin boards with art where there used to be notices, and the old desks are coupled with new chairs.

The Academy is still a place of comfort, a place for growth. She is not nervous because she is here. No, she is nervous because of whom she will see.

Every year, the Hokage goes to talk to the new students, but because Kakashi is living within a prison of paperwork and because she is all too eager to take up tasks that will keep herself occupied, she volunteered. Naruto did as well.

It will be the first time she has seen him since their last fight in her kitchen.

Naruto tosses his arm around her shoulder without warning, tugging her to his side. She hadn’t heard him approach, and she mentally berates herself for not being more vigilant. “Sakura-chan! Are you ready? Are you pumped?”

It is impossible, even with a broken cup and a month of terse conversations between them, for her to not return his infectious smile. She laughs, the top of her head knocking his chin. He smells like lavender soap—the kind that Hinata uses. “I’m not sure I’m at your level of enthusiasm, but I’m happy.”

He stares at her face, the small smile glowing across her cheeks, and kisses the top of her head. “Good. I’m glad.”

They walk into the classroom together, and Sakura wonders why she had ever kept anything secret from him to begin with. Shame? Hurt?

But as Naruto is high-fiving kids and talking about the beginnings of the Fourth War, the beginnings of his life, she remembers.

It is because she loves him too much, and she doesn’t want to disappoint him.

She stares at her beige sandals, forgetting for a second that she is supposed to be presenting the importance of teamwork, and Naruto nudges her side. She glances at him, and he nods encouragingly. “Naruto is the kind of teammate that I know you can all find inside of you,” she starts, thinking of twinkling blue eyes and his promises of a lifetime.

Her lips tremble, eyebrows drawing together as she struggles to contain the surge of emotion. He is such a good friend.  

“Naruto is the person that will pick you up when you’re down, love you when you push him away, and never let go. And I know each and every one can find part of him inside you because that drive is within all of us. It is the Will of Fire.”

They dismiss for target practice, and then she is grabbing Naruto’s hand and dragging him outside with the class, laughing about how she was always better with shuriken than he was. They toss blades easily at too-close targets, bantering, and soon the school day is over.

The two of them remain, seated underneath a large tree. “I’m sorry,” Sakura blurts, and the admission feels like the first breath of fresh air she’s had in weeks. “I was afraid of what you would think, but I should have known better than that.”

He cracks open an eye. “Mm.”

Everything comes to the surface at once. “I left Lightning because I was too proud, but…I still love him, Naruto,” she speaks slowly, throat getting tight. “I love him so much that it aches. I try to erase him, to move forward, but he’s been part of me for so long that I can’t. I love him, but I don’t know that he’ll ever come home.”

Naruto sighs, a tanned hand tousling his hair. He has a scab on his wrist. “Sakura-chan, you have always known more about love than me. You have lived by it your whole life. Wouldn’t you say that it’s worth it?”

She picks at some weeds by her hip. “Are you asking me if I regret it? You already know the answer to that.”

He shrugs. “So why give that up now? Why run away from love when it’s gotten you this far?”

She leans to the left, her head falling onto his shoulder. “I don’t know.”

–

It takes a month for mud to dry into dirt, and for dirt to burst into soft bentgrass. Snow country is not the same as it was before. The remnants of the season have melted into the summertime, and the air is temperate.

Scarlet roofs dot the countryside, and the wind rushes past him, its touch a reminder of what once was. The bluff is quiet. His feet shift in the grass, eyes set in the distance.

Snow is objectively one of the more beautiful places he’s seen. The air is crisp, the smell of pine soft in the breeze, but there is something empty about the land. His fingers grow cold, and he tucks his hand back inside his coat.

The city stretches out below him, the sky is empty of clouds, and his lone hand closes around the letters in his pocket. The wind ruffles his hair again, the ghost of her touch, and goosebumps prickle on his neck in response.

The paper is soft from age, and he doesn’t need to take them out to remember the words. It is one of the ones from other people that comes to him first. Mourning doves coo from the trees, and the words wrap around him, constricting.

Naoya, a man he has never met, whispers to him.  _I spent my last moments thinking only of you. I spend all my moments getting lost in you_.

And then:  _I want nothing more than for you to be happy._

And then:  _Please come home to me._

And then:  _I love you._

He rocks back on his heels, back hunching as this land brings back all the things he’d left behind. Her touch, her faith. If he closes his eyes for long enough, he can still see her shorter hair from behind, the snowfall, the feel of her pressed against him.

His hand in hers.

So soft, so soft.

He waits.

–

Sakura is waiting in the flower shop, fingering the petals of a lilting calla lily when the door chimes and Ino walks in, hands on her hips. “So you’ve finally crawled back here, huh?” she scowls, arms cradling bags of groceries.

“Ino,” Sakura implores. “Do you need help with—”

“ _No._ ” Ino’s voice is clipped. “I am quite fine with handling things on my own. Something I learned best from you this past month. You had it quite under control, as do I. Now if you’ll excuse me,” she bites pointedly, “you are in between me and the kitchen.”

Sakura snatches a bag of groceries before Ino can protest, placing them on the counter gingerly. She places the fruit in the crystal bowl on the countertop, the packages of seeds in the woven basket by the window, and the cuts of fish in the freezer.

“I’m sorry,” Sakura’s voice cracks, and when Ino finally looks at Sakura, her green eyes are brimming with tears. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I just…I didn’t want to talk about it because I thought I could handle it, and I thought if I ignored it for long enough, it would just go away. That I could erase him. But I can’t, and I hurt you by avoiding you, and everything is a mess. And I miss you. I miss my best friend.”

Ino sighs heavily, crossing her arms.

“I don’t know what to do. I’m in love with a man who thinks he needs to search the world for his heart when it’s already inside of him.”

Ino’s gaze softens, and she wraps her arms around Sakura. Warm tears slide down her neck and soak in her shirt. “It hurts,” Sakura whispers, voice clogged with loss. “It hurts so  _fucking bad_ because he’s out there and I’m here and I can’t fix it. I don’t know that it can be fixed.”

They leave the rest of the groceries in the paper bags on the counter, and Ino ushers Sakura up the stairs to the bed that the spent their childhood making forts and dreams out of. The start of summer rain begins to patter against the window.

The two of them curl up side by side, blankets pulled up to their chins, and Sakura tells her everything. Tells her of the exchanged letters, the days in Snow, the traveling. The painting of the mountains, the painting of Sasuke. His arm around her waist, his breath against her lips. The letters. The despair. The month that passed, the date, and Naruto.

“I love him,” Sakura says quietly, tears slipping from the corner of her eyes. She hastily wipes them away, looking determinedly out the window at the darkening sky.

Ino brushes her slim fingers through Sakura’s hair. “Well,” Ino says, “you know what to do.”

Sakura, eyes puffy and bloodshot, turns to stare at her in bewilderment. “No, I don’t.”

“Yes, you do,” Ino insists. “Forehead, you don’t need me to tell you how to fix this. You aren’t the girl with the ribbon anymore. You haven’t been for a long time.”

Sakura is quiet, sniffling intermittently. Outside, the wind rustles the trees and the rain picks up, and the clouds drape the world in shadows.

Ino laces her fingers through Sakura’s, squeezing. “Do what you’ve always done. Follow your heart.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "dwell" by tony anderson


	17. refuge

It takes Sakura half an hour to spill all the words she’d stored up in the hollows of her teeth, the slender line of her tongue. 

She doesn’t address or sign it. She doesn’t need to. 

–

_We are different animals, you and I._

_Me, waiting and longing, a girl who has only ever seen you. You, trying._

_These days have been longer than I can explain. It is a strange thing because I have never stopped missing you. Not when you were here, part of this home and this makeshift family. Not when I was there, tucked in your arms in parts of the world I had never explored._

_I don’t know how to explain–you have always been so far from me. I am the shore, but no matter how hard you swim, your own currents pull you away._

_You see, Sasuke-kun, you have always been my ocean._

_I planted my roots in you, my trees, my shore, my land, so long ago._

_I can admit this: I will always want you to be here. Here beneath these trees that slope down these hills near this river. Here under this sun where I first learned what it meant to fight._

_Here in these arms where I can cradle the hurt you soothe like an ulcer in your mouth, here where I can touch the unarmored parts of you which are mine alone._

_But what I want, more than that, is for you to be alive, whole._

_I love you entire._

_I ask only that you know this: You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves._

_Be free._

_–_

He writes before he gets her letter.

–

_Sakura,_

_I went to the sea today._

_The afternoon heat was bearable, even when the summer solstice was at its peak. A cool wind blew steadily on my sails, carrying me to the outskirts of the world, this archipelagos shores untouched, unfettered._

_As I stood alone, following the lone track of footsteps…_

_I have thought of you._

_I took great lengths to find my solace, my answer to this self-imposed road to redemption. I lay myself bare, took all efforts to divest myself of all things that shackle._

_But even here, all I can see are your eyes mirroring the clear green waters, glimmering with sunlight. The white sands on the pale skin of your wrist, my lips following the frail bottle glass line of your vein. I can hear you in ever crest and fall of the ocean, in every hushed sigh of the waves._

_I have been looking for answers, but it seems…_

_I have left them with you._

_Enclosed is a string of pearls I’ve gathered, lined in different forms–in teardrops, in glossy marbles, in imperfect rings–your hair, whorls of silver roses against pale sheets bright with moonlight._

_Know that I’ve spent nights thinking of you._

_It is time to come home._

_Be well,_

_Sasuke_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "cycle" by beck & "wild geese" by mary oliver  
> \+ for lilmikomiko who long ago wrote me a letter from sasuke to sakura which took my breath away, which I loved so much that I stole it for this


	18. cycle

Morning comes slowly. Cool white cotton sheets tangle around her restless legs, the dawn caressing the cartography of her shoulder blades. 

The window is cracked open, dewy air wafting in.

Her mind is all blueprints and geometry and plans for the future, deep breaths easing their way in and out of parted lips. Sakura has spent the last several days with architects drawing up plans for her children’s hospital. Her desk is organized chaos, stacks of file folders and paper in unidentifiable piles.

She never received a reply to her letter.

Her eyelashes flutter open, focusing on the muted sunlight, the power lines, the crooning of a mourning dove seated on the window sill. Her right hand is relaxed, curled loosely next to her, and when she shifts, the crinkle of paper catches her attention.

There, beneath her hand, is a thin stack of letters. She lifts them slowly, eyebrows pulling together. The rest are familiar, but the top one is a sealed envelope.

She tears it open slowly, and pinkish pearls spill out onto her bed, a letter following them out. She unfolds it with care; his handwriting is one she knows by heart, and unbidden, her eyes sting with tears. She reads even as movement makes itself known in her periphery. Her eyes do not leave the paper.

Her lips tremble.

“I know you collect them,” he says, and her eyes slide shut, “so I added one.”

Her teeth clamp down on her full bottom lip, and after a moment, she exhales a shuddered breath, catharsis. “Added one?”

“A love letter.”

She rolls onto her back, suddenly so afraid to look him in the eye, to face her own desperate heart.

“Sakura,” he whispers, and she turns her head, finding the courage to open her eyes. He is kneeling on the floor by her side, face inches from hers. The painted canvas is propped against the wall behind him, his bag on the floor. She meets his eyes shyly.

“Sasuke-kun,” she mouths, and her hand sweeps the paper onto the floor, moving to brush his hair out of his face. He is the one to close his eyes this time, leaning into her touch. A warm tear slides down the side of her cheek to meet the pillow.

He kisses the hollow of her palm, imparts a promise to her skin. “Sakura…I’m home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "liz on top of the world" by dario marianelli (from pride and prejudice) 
> 
> this story will always hold a special place in my heart   
> goodbye (again) wanderer!verse


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